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A beloved anchor of the River Arts District will host its seventh annual Spring Open House & Twlight Party April 12.

The evening promises to be full of art-filled demonstrations, a beautiful garden in bloom, as well as treats to eat and drink. It's a great introduction to the landmark studio space if you've never been, and a great opportunity to check in to see what is different since the last time you've visited (The photo is from Michael Mauney).

Here are details:

CURVE 2014 Spring Open House Weekend & Twilight PartyASHEVILLE RAD – CURVE studios & garden will host its 7th Annual Spring Open House & Twilight Party on 2nd Saturday, April 12, 2014 from 10am to 8pm @ 6•9•12 Riverside Drive, in the heart of Asheville's River Arts District.Please join us Saturday, April 12th, starting @ 10am. Each building will be bustling with creativity. Come watch as our artists demonstrate how their unique creative processes come together into artistically functional, wearable, visually pleasing pieces. Here is what you can expect to see:In #6 CURVE: Pattiy Torno's collection of fashion, fine art and furnishings, as well as uniquely designed, hand forged and fabricated jewelry by Mary Timmer.Downstairs in #9 CURVE: the colorful, botanical inspired, enamel work of Monty Phillips, whimsical, functional pottery by artist Angelique Tassistro & figurative ceramic "souls" from Cassie Ryalls Butcher.Upstairs in #9 CURVE: contemporary 2D and 3D mixed media by Laura Balombini, the handmade paper lighting forms of Pamella O'Connor, hand weavings & wearables from Suzanne Gernandt, & the drawing and printmaking work of Dona Barnett.Downstairs in #12 CURVE: salt fired decorative pottery by Kyle Carpenter, the sgrafitto ceramic work of Karen Newgard & colorful, functional, table and kitchenware by Maria Andrade Troya.The CURVE Twilight Party starts @ 5pm. We invite you to come explore the beautiful blooms & fragrances in CURVE gardens, eat & drink tasty treats, and admire our talented artists & their work. Back by popular demand is Mark Rosenstein & his GO Kitchen Ready staff cooking shish kabobs on his custom built, wood fired "inferniollio". There will be kegs of local beer & cider in front of #6, sangria inside #9 downstairs, wine & homemade desserts upstairs in #9, & a variety of fresh homemade salads in #12 downstairs.CURVE's mission is "Bringing people to ART & ART to life in Asheville's River Arts District". In addition, CURVE artists will donate a percentage of sales to the GO Kitchen Ready job-training program, so bring your wallets and help support Green Opportunities & the amazing artists here @ CURVE studios & garden!

I had the pleasure of writing about the founder of CURVE in 2010. Here is a look at her story, which is so intertwined with CURVE.

ARTFUL DESIGN

Artist advocates for evolution of River Arts District

By Carol Motsinger

cmotsinger@CITIZEN-TIMES.com

ASHEVILLE -- Pattiy Torno transforms.

In her hands, the abstract becomes the material. Shapes, colors, feelings become the quilt that gives warmth, the dress that dazzles or the hat that protects.

"I can stand there, and if I have enough to work with, I start to see colors next to each other, I start to see how they are going to play, and all of a sudden, it becomes clear what I am going to do with each of them," Torno said of her quilt-making process, "and I can't stop until I have done all of that."

Torno's vision is always set to the future, always mining the potential function of all things. A folded pile of black-and-white polka-dot fabric in her Asheville studio is a skirt destined to twirl on a date-night dance floor. The seeds she plants in April become her dinner in October.

And in 1989, forgotten, gutted buildings along the riverbanks were, in Torno's mind, a new beginning for all of Asheville.

These structures are better-known now as Curve Studios and Garden, which will be featured in the River Arts District Studio Stroll on Saturday and June 13.

Torno's role in resurrecting these Riverside Drive buildings helped usher in a second life for the area. Before the bustling art studios, the hearty barbecue and hometown brew that defines the district today, it was shunned in the shadow of downtown. It was but a barren wasteland of dilapidated warehouses and lonely rats.

"It was the stupidest thing that I did that's turned out really well," Torno said about buying the Curve buildings, while sitting her studio space in building No. 6, surrounded by her quilts, fleece scarves and hats. For decades, Asheville women have also been sporting her comfortable, body-conscious knit tops, dresses and skirts.

Curve's success -- it's nurtured and housed around 40 artists throughout the years -- is just one of the grander monuments to her instinct's accuracy.

Her gut's approval of the Asheville community was right, even though it was much smaller than where she thought she would move next after falling out of love with New York in the early 1980s.

Every aspect of her craft, from her quilts to her clothes, also falls into this category. They "are not intellectual pursuits," she said.

"I usually have a structure in mind," she said, "but when I start, I really don't know what's going to happen." But no matter what results, Torno knows it's another song performed by her own artistic voice.

Finding her voice

Torno first found her voice when she was about 8 years old, making a felt jacket for a doll in the basement of her family's home in Arlington, Va. Her mother was a seamstress.

"Our house always had a sewing machine set up in the basement," she said. "It was a nice way to interface with my mom."

Soon after her first project, she made an apron for her father, and by the time she was in middle school, she was making her clothes for school. Her weekends in high school were dedicated to next week's outfits, making up to four looks in two days.

"I have always been a fast worker," she said. This speed was put to its test at the peak of her production with Tornado Clothing Co., which she started in 1984 in Asheville.

At one point, she was shipping women's clothing to more than 400 stores across the country, including Nordstorm's.

In their infancy, her clothes designs are geometric shapes, she said. "I just keep it simple and let the clothes be what they naturally want to be," Torno said.

In the 30 years she's been making garments, she's never chased trends.

"My inspiration comes from what I don't have (in my closet) and what I wish I did have," she said.

Torno once made a soft evening wrap that became one of her most popular items simply because she wanted something to wear when she went out on the town.

In every area of her life, when there's an absence in her world, she creates a presence to occupy the void.

When she moved to Asheville, so far away from New York City's vibrant music scene in the '80s, she created a forum for her to celebrate and share her favorite tracks from Black Flag and Siouxsie and the Banshees by hosting a late-night rock show on WCQS.

Curve Studios and Garden were another one of these void-fillers.

Torno discovered the buildings when she and friends needed a new home for a punk rock club. Her group used to gather at a club on Broadway Street called The Spider's Web, a sort of illegal rock 'n' roll speakeasy, which was quickly shut down by the city.

"It was a ghost town back then," Torno said of the River Arts District, "so we knew we could make as much noise as we wanted down here."

A lasting investment

In 1989, she had just closed Tornado Clothing Co., so she had money available to invest in the studios.

It didn't seem to be much of an investment: There was one toilet that dumped directly into the French Broad River, no heat and leaky roofs. "They were shells," Torno said of the buildings.

They started with renovating building No. 6 for the club, dubbed Squashpile. The club closed in 1991, and in 1992, she began to renovate the rest of the buildings to make them living and working studios.

The club's logo is now the only faded, faint memory of how she first used the building. It peeks out from under a rug in Torno's work space.

Torno doesn't go to rock shows anymore, but she's always listening to music -- more than likely a tune from Bjork -- while she quilts.

"In any given quilt, there could easily be 150,000 stitches," she said.

"You are doing the same motion over and over, and the Zen is absolutely lovely. It's why I continue to quilt 25 years later ... sitting still, maintaining your focus is meditating. It seriously helps my quality of life."

Although she designs a variety of forms, her true focus these days is the continued revitalization and new construction in the River Arts District.

"By creating an intensive, authentic, easily accessible district that is home to artists, musicians, theater folk, environmentalists and budding entrepreneurs, the Asheville River Arts District provides access, in a new way, to the creative process," Torno said. "It's a less prepackaged, more genuine experience that enriches the lives of all involved."

Filling a void

She believes the River Arts District has an opportunity to fill a void in Asheville, to create a business core that is "intellectually intensive, not real estate intensive," she said.

The district could house so many more young professionals and contribute to the creative class that Torno regards as the most viable economic future for Asheville.

Curve already provides this opportunity to its tenants, but Torno is working closely with the city and other organizations to advocate for further development in this direction, including the newly formed Asheville Riverfront Redevelopment Commission.

When she sees the remaining overgrown warehouses in the district, she sees art. She sees community. She sees possibility.

"I think we have an opportunity in the River Arts District to create a new model," she said.

"There is a way for a person to come to my studio and directly get to know me, understand my process, be a part of a process and take something home that's of value to them, whether it's a quilt or simply a conversation."

Education: Virginia Commonwealth University 1975-77, Parsons School of Design 1977-79.

Her motivation for design: "If my clothes can make somebody more comfortable during the day, they might be a little nicer to their kids or their husband ... and then I will have done my job well. It's not about making someone look skinny or hip; it's really about how do we, by the path that we choose, influence the life of the people around us. That's my motivation for just about everything I do."